Tutu

July 22nd would have been my Grandma’s 93rd birthday. The woman I grew up with for 27 years of my life and for the first time in 27 years, I didn’t celebrate a birthday with her having a glass of Kentucky Bourbon and Deviled Ham Spread on Wheat Thins….sounds gross huh? But I guess it is a generational thing, because Deviled Ham was my Dad and Grandma’s favorite and they passed it along to me – the meat that looks like dog food but when mixed with mayonnaise is amazing!!!

Her passing and her birthday jogged a lot of memories about her I felt compelled to write about to express my sorrow. So here it goes, what I loved most about her....

The way she made Bracke’s toast and jelly, how her house smelled when she made fried chicken, being “washed over” by waves in our beach chair on Kiawah Island, everything Kiawah, riding bikes on sea shells in Kiawah, thinking she broke her arm when she fell off her bike, staying up late to watch SNL, her front porch during storms, swimming in the make shift pool in the summers, laughing about nursing home stories, sharing lunch for her first year in St. Margaret Hall every day possible, playing gin, playing rummecube, squeezing into her bed with Brad and me during sleepovers, telling her everything when she was sick, holding her hand before she passed, her blue floral suit she wore every year in Kiawah, going to St.Cecilia festival, taking the bus downtown when we were kids, going to KidsMart to see her at work, her Old Fashions, swimming at her brother Eugene’s pool with their dog Tarzan, her Alicemont house she lived in most of her life, her scent and a ton more.

For those of you who know me, you know this has been a tough year for me. With life and love - death is inevitable, but knowing that our loved ones are in a better place and we are the ones left suffering brings a sense of peace. I’ve had a lot of people ask me how I hold it all together, but I’ve learned that falling apart and losing a sense of who your are happens, but if you let it happen all the time it becomes a habit (a little insight as well from Eat, Love, Pray)– and who wants to be around those people? Finding your own peace and making sense of things takes time, but eventually the hurting goes away and the paing still lingers, but you learn to forge on.

I could go on for days and months and talk about those I’ve lost the past year and some previously, and one blog won’t be enough to talk about these people. But in loving memory of the following people I’m just mentioning their names because they too won’t be and can’t be forgotten.

Richard Jay Uhlmansiek (Nov’99 – my Dad), Jack Kaine (Nov’07 – My Grandpa), Dan Kaine (Aug’07 My Uncle), Peyton Mckenna Asman (Nov’07 – my Cousin’s Baby), John Alexander (’07 – Friend), Kevin McCallum (June’08 – Friend) and of course Henrietta Uhlmansiek (Jul ’08 –Grandma)

I think the quote below sums up most of these people so I wanted to end with this...

“Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels. The round pegs in the square holes, the ones who see things just a bit differently. They are not fond of rules, and they fear the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can't do is ignore them, because they change things, they push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, I see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who actually do.” John Alexander